A computer-generated image of a planned stadium for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Smaller than Yorkshire, boasting temperatures of over 50C in June and July, and with no footballing tradition to speak of, Qatar was always an unlikely choice to host football's World Cup. The latest allegations, placing the disgraced former Asian Football Confederation president, Mohamed bin Hammam, and a $5m (£3m) web of illicit payments closer than ever to the heart of Qatar's bidding strategy, can now be added to the avalanche of practical and moral concerns piling up at its door.

Already, its extreme climate has caused a protracted argument about whether the 2022 tournament should be moved to November and December, ripping up the sporting calendar in the process. Although bids were tabled on the basis that the World Cup would be held in June and July, it soon became abundantly clear that a summer tournament was untenable, even if the promised air-conditioned stadiums were delivered. A Fifa consultation process introduced to mollify furious professional leagues and broadcasting partners will come to the only sensible conclusion by the end of the year.

More seriously, there is an ongoing international outcry prompted by investigations by the Guardian and human rights organisations into the unsafe conditions endured by many of the 1.4 million migrant labourers building the infrastructure to host the World Cup.

On this issue, Fifa's much maligned president, Sepp Blatter, has danced on the head of a pin – eventually forced by international pressure to push for improved conditions but still refusing to criticise the Qataris too strongly. Fifa and the World Cup organisers cling to the theory that the tournament can be a catalyst for change. The Qataris have recently promised to reform the sponsorship system at the root of the issue, but human rights groups remain unconvinced.

Lastly, the corruption allegations that have swirled around the bid ever since Blatter – who voted for the US – plucked Qatar's name from an envelope have returned centre stage. Qatar 2022 executives have furiously resisted a series of allegations since they won the bid. They have claimed that the most serious emanated from a disgruntled former employee, hinted that a form of post-colonial racism is at work, and decried the lack of solid proof. The new details, backed by hard evidence, will make it harder for them to maintain their affronted stance.

The fog around why 14 of the 22 Fifa executive committee members ultimately ignored Fifa's own technical report – which highlighted the potential health risk to players, officials and spectators and described Qatar's plans as "high risk" – is clearing bit by bit.

There were always at least three campaigns in play to land the 2022 World Cup for the tiny oil- and gas-rich Gulf state. It was an outcome that seemed improbable, almost laughable, at the beginning of the race, and had become inevitable by the time the votes were counted in Zurich on 2 December.

The first was played out on conference stages across the world and in a purpose-built presentation unit in Doha with hi-tech 3D models of air-cooled stadiums, by extravagantly paid ambassadors such as Zinedine Zidane, the former France international, and Pep Guardiola, manager of Bayern Munich, and with glossy bid books and gladhanding.

The second was the lobbying campaign in which all bidders took advantage of grey areas in the shabbily defined rules surrounding the dual race for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments to offer to build training academies, arrange or host lucrative friendlies and do everything in their power and budget (limitless, in Qatar's case) to win votes. Some of those deals were personal. Others, including high-level negotiations with heads of state and large companies in the countries of some voting executive committee members, were transnational.

The third campaign, drawn ever more sharply into focus by each round of revelations, is the extent to which Bin Hammam – the Qatari former Fifa vice-president who dared to take on Blatter but was later disgraced by bribery claims – acted as a "rogue" element who greased the wheels of the bid with cash.

Qatar 2022 executives have claimed, and will continue to claim, that Bin Hammam had nothing to do with their victory and played no part in their campaign. That suggestion, which always appeared unsatisfactory, now stretches the bounds of credulity.

In the knowledge that some of the biggest countries in world football – and some of the richest – were queueing up to host the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, football administrators around the world who had long gorged on the flow of Fifa cash were gearing up for a major payday.

Add in the fact that Bin Hammam, who helped Blatter to victory in his first presidential campaign, in 1998, allegedly with payments to African officials, was preparing to try to unseat his former ally, and the brazen requests for cash outlined in depressing detail inthe Sunday Times cache – from faceless football officials named Seedy to former world footballer of the year George Weah – came pouring in.

Losing bidders from the US and Australia, still smarting from the defeat but also with questions to answer about their own probity, are not the only ones watching Fifa's next move with interest.

Some may argue that Qatar was simply playing the game that others had pursued for decades – albeit with a sophisticated network of international bank transfers for millions of dollars, all documented via email, rather than brown paper envelopes under hotel room doors. The problem remains as much with Fifa's discredited game as the corrupt practices of the players.

But for Qatar the sums are bigger, the stakes higher and the potential loss of face more catastrophic if it is ultimately stripped of the tournament. Part of the reason for its World Cup bid was to raise its profile in the eyes of the world. So far, it has done so for all the wrong reasons.

In Qatar, and some other parts of the world, the latest revelations are likely to be dismissed as yet another example of sour grapes from the defeated western bids from England, the US and Australia.

The onus is now on Michael Garcia, the former New York attorney who has already spent a reported £6m and travelled the world collecting evidence for a report that is due to be passed to the adjudicatory chamber of Fifa's ethics committee later this year, to prove he has taken the new evidence seriously.

If the previously unthinkable were to happen and a revote were to be called – and a confluence of factors that also includes Blatter's political manoeuvring make that more likely than it was this time last year – then the US would be in pole position to benefit.

The US was defeated 14-8 in the runoff, sparking private fury among humiliated bid executives.

Because it promised to use largely existing stadiums, it would be relatively easy to resurrect the bid, although it remains to be seen whether there would be the political will to do so.

Australia's failed bid, which cost £25m and has also been hit by allegations of impropriety, garnered just a single vote in 2010 and there may be little public appetite to try again. The other defeated bids were from Japan and South Korea.

In the wake of the 2010 controversy, the rules were changed so that future votes would be decided by the 209 member federations rather than the 25 executive committee members – although opinion is divided over whether that would make the process less corruptible.

All eyes are now on Garcia. Last year, he said his investigation would last well into 2014, but the Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke recently called on him to deliver it before the World Cup.

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